Averting Your Eyes
by livingheaven
Summary: "My beloved Cry, I hereby promise to be by your side whenever, and wherever, an elven motherfucker needs an ass-kicking." (Cryaotic)
1. Chapter 1

A/N:

1- I'm pretty much only going to be referring to Cry as Cry, cryaosin or Cryaotic. You know why. Shhh.  
2- This is 'set', if you like, before the whole cryaotic thing started.  
3- It's also set in America. I'm from the UK. I use extra u's. It's a thing.

Now that that's over, here proceeds the story!

xXKarmaXx

"Carmack, you stay behind and cover us. Jakey, you're up with me. Ash, keep in between Carmack and us. Car, I'm counting on you to keep her alive."

We spawned on a dusty forest path. Although there were enough trees surrounding us to shut us in darkness, ample sunlight found its way through the leaves. Convenient.

jakeythekid1 shuffled up beside me. He unsheathed his sword slowly and stared at it as if he was about to fight for Avalon or whatever. Then he struck a fierce look at the distance. I'm sure the mountains were _terrified_.

carmackdays took a few steps back, taking out his crossbow and glaring at the trees. He sported a brown leather waistcoat and lighter brown trousers. His long, dark hair fell in annoying precise chunks over his forehead.

ashtray23 stepped in from the trees. Out of us all, she was the most insufficiently dressed for battle. She wore a light purple dress with a white ribbon in the middle that stopped at her calves. I mean, at least _I_ had armour, no matter how inadequate and revealing.

I pulled out my staff and brought it down on the ground three times. Why? God knows.

I walked forward, my feet apparently scraping along the ground. Our levels were all pretty shitty right now, but you have to start somewhere. It seemed like a much better place than WoW, anyways, even if the content needed to be built up.

A wolf howl shook the trees above us, and we were ambushed. In moments, I was staring right into the mouth of a white wolf, its teeth sharp and tongue lolling.

"Shit," I said in an aggressive whisper.

"Ah, fuck," Carmack agreed, with a little hint of a chuckle in his tone.

Fire begin to build on the end of my staff until it couldn't be contained in it's wooden prison, and it shot from its restraints, right down the wolf's throat. The wolf flew back, eventually regaining its bearing and drooping its head to the side. It whimpered painfully like a dog would, and for a few moments I felt kind of sorry for the bastard that just tried to eat my face. Then it came after me again, opening its mouth so wide that I could see the point of its teeth.

I sprinted backwards, trying to put any kind of space between me and the beast, and then threw an ice-beam along the ground. The life left its body in an icy tomb.

Injured dog whimpers echoed around the forest, as if someone was playing a tape recorder over and over again. One by one, the wolf bodies faded to dust. My assailant thawed and then fell to the ground in a lifeless heap.

"Everyone good?" Ash asked, standing in the middle of the path.

"Minimum damages," Jakey said gruffly. "Heal us just in case."

"Right!" she said, as if she were an actual nurse healing wounded warriors.

She went up to Jakey and stretched out her arms until her hands rested just over his chest. A pinkish purple glow emanated from her palms, spreading through him until the health bar became full. She then repeated this procedure with each of us, each one taking a few moments at most.

"Right, let's go," Carmack said.

We were still in the portion of the game where not many people wanted to kill us, so for the most part, we were battling wolves and bears. But there were some traitors loyal to the giant ganglord that had threatened our dear city of Ravenfell if his demands were not met, and that kind of treason deserved the cold judgement of my staff, Jakey's sword and Carmack's poison arrows. Other than being able to play assassin in your pajamas, the human enemies also offered a significant EXP boost. Carmack reached level 8, I reached level 9, Ash reached level 8 _and_ 9, and Jakey reached double digits.

After beating our last batch of hooligans, we turned a corner into a clearing and over a bridge into a thin, straight stretch of land. An ocean lay before us, the water sparkling under the sun. A long wooden plank stood between us and a perfectly circular island, with no way past the water surrounding it.

"Looks like the Boss is coming up," I said.

"Yeah," Carmack said. I could imagine him nodding enthusiastically. "Everyone ready?"

"Ash healed us up after the archers back there, remember?" Jake asked, his New York accent shining through the deepness of his voice.

"Yeah, I know."

The team fell silent for a few seconds.

"...Are we going, then?" I asked.

"Yeah!" at least two people chirped.

Our feet made _trip_-_trap_ noises on the wood as we crossed. As we reached the middle of the fairly spacious island, a dull red banner came up on the screen with yellow-brown letters on it. "VINCENT AXEJAW', it screamed, before decreasing in size and turning into a deep green bar with the name and level written on it. He was level 12.

"Remember the formation," I reminded them. Carmack scuttled to the back and Jakey charged forward. He was the first to be struck by the giant's hand, almost two times as tall and ten times as wide as he was. He fell to the ground, his health bar sprinting towards the halfway mark. From the side, I threw an icebeam along the ground. "Ash! Quick!"

Ash came in at an almost inhuman speed and reached her hands over Jakey's body. The glow started just as the giant was thawing.

"Ash, that's fine, move!" I called. The ice shattered with a guttural roar that shook the island violently.

"Wait, I can do a bit more!" Ash said.

I moved in, throwing consecutive fireballs at the giant's belly. Each one threw him back a step and forced him to regain his balance. That kept him at bay for a while, until he leaned forward to where he had been standing and swiped me, casting me to the side.

"Ash, you can't, move!"

Ash had no attacks. I hated picking favourites, but if we lost her, we were fucked.

"It's almost done, I swear! Just keep him off me!" she protested as the giant's hand came down flat on her head.

Her health bar went red. She broke the healing spell and ran behind the giant, to the very edge of the island before the ocean. I cast another ice beam only to have it burn up in the ocean.

A deep green glow surrounded her body as she desperately tried to heal herself.

"Shit, shit, shit..." she mouthed quietly as the giant approached her. I threw fireballs, waiting for the grace period in between icebeams. Carmack furiously shot poison darts and Jakey hacked at him from the side, hoping to distract him. But the giant had his target.

He raised his palm, so slowly that it was sadistically comical, and swiped her character off the map.

The game paused and a brown bubble, designed like a middle ages scroll, popped up asking me if I wanted to use a Fairt to revive her. Fairts were in-game currency that you could only get by actually _buying_ them with real money, or by completing special tasks. I loved Ash, but I wasn't about to let go of a dollar of my money just to get her back again.

Her lifeless corpse lay there by the ocean, slowly fading out. I shot a fireball at his ass crack.

He roared fiercely, as if he knew what part of his body I had just hit. He moved over to me. I tried to freeze him, but used the wrong hotkey and ended up using Agility instead.

Carmack stood where Ash's body had been, shooting him. Jakey sliced at his back. He only seemed interested in me; I was the new Ash.

His almighty slap sent my HP to red.

"Shit!" I sprinted up the back.

Carmack sent a fiery arrow, angering him even more. It also set him on fire, which caused serious damages to our enemy, but that was besides the point. The giant turned around and charged at Carmack, _body-slamming_ him. The fact that he survived it was ridiculous at best, considering about 20 of him could fit into the giant, but I was so fucking glad.

Jakey did some fancy sword-work, this time succeeding in distracting him. He brought the giant's HP down to orange, leaving his own live hanging by threads in the process.

"Retreat!" I called, shooting an ice beam and finally hitting him for once.

I thanked fuck that the wooden plank hadn't been blocked off. We ran like cowards onto the thin stretch of land and drank and ate _anything_ that would give us a running chance at this.

"Drink up, men!" I said, sounding far more serious than I had intended to. I went into my inventory. "...Fuck..."

"What?" Jake asked aggressively, still with a vial to his mouth.

"Guys, I'm out of potions."

"You are fucking _kidding_ me," Carmack gasped, his voice becoming deeper as he spoke.

"You didn't save any?" Jakey sounded angry, but he _always_ sounded angry. It was extremely inconvenient. The ground began to shake as the giant emerged from his encasement.

"Dude, leave off her," Carmack said, "I'm out too."

"Fuck...so I'm gonna have to give you my last?"

"No," I said. "I wouldn't do that. If I'm going out, I'm going out."

"Emmy, _no_," Carmack said calmly.

"Can you two quit fucking and get back to fighting?" Jakey's voice was so deep and gruff now that he was almost inaudible.

"Right- sorry," I said. Just as I clicked off my inventory, another text box came up. "Fuck..." I mumbled.

"What now?" Jakey asked, turning his character towards me as if he were giving me the evil eye.

"Sorry, it's just annoying how join party requests just pop up in this," I explained. "Shit!" I said, very nearly missing the giant's fist. The text box still covered my screen.

"Who wants to join?" Jakey asked. I was sure that some of the tension had eased from his voice, but then again, you could never tell.

"Some guy - or girl- called 'cryaosin'," I told him. "Probably a jumper- just trying to get the EXP without actually doing anything."

"Who gives a shit?" Jakey asked. "They could be a healer, or they could have potions."

"What level is he?" Carmack asked.

"11-"

"Add him, fuck!" Jakey shouted, shoving his sword into the giant's belly. I clicked accept in a nervous panic and let my fingers slide absent-mindedly across the hotkeys.

Cryaosin's name appeared midair, and his character slowly filled out below it. A warrior with a golden sword, his jet black hair came down across his forehead in a swoop, with little annoying gaps in it. His armour was also evidently superior to Jakey's; his arms were coated in silver and it came up around his neck instead of going down in a v-neck.

"Dude!" I said, summoning a large ball of energy from afar and shooting it into the giant's skull. "You got any health potions?"

It took a moment of nobody else responding for him to reply, "I do, in fact!" His voice was smooth, velvety and laden with enthusiasm.

He ran over to me as the other two boys distracted the giant. 'cryaosin gave you 1 Health Potion' appeared in the same yellow-brown letters that the giant's name had, only in lower caps so it wasn't nearly as frightening.

If I actually was my character, I would have been chugging that potion like I was in the middle of a drought. My health bar filled to green. Cryaosin and I went towards the giant together, weapons raring to go. A dark blue energy coated his sword as he went in for a double attack. I watched the giant's health go down, never stopping for a moment. I held my staff in one hand and raised the other, swaying back and forth slightly. A red, burning twister slowly began to emerge around his body, and as soon as it became real, it forced the giant down to his knees. He let out a deafening roar as his body was reduced to cinders. My mana bar became empty.

"Woo!" I shouted as the 'mission success' box came up, detailing our coin earnings and EXP gains.

"That...was..._awesome_," Cryaosin said, his tone calm despite what he was saying.

"What was?" I asked. Carmack and Jakey returned to town.

"All of it!" he said, that enthusiasm from before taking over most of his speech. "You kicked ass, mage girl." His voice turned deep and serious.

I laughed into the microphone- something which I rarely found myself doing- and said, "_Thank you_."

He returned to town before I could add him as a friend. I made a mental note to remember to do that next time.

Back in Ravenfell, our group had already scattered. Carmack was standing by Sadith, the weapons guy, Jake was taking to Aadi, the enchantress, and Ash was at the merchants. She ran up to me.

'Sorry...' appeared in a bubble over her head. I went to go type something, when a bubble appeared on the other side of the screen.

'It's fine.' Jakey was surprisingly nice on text. 'You had a blip on the boss. That's where you're _supposed_ to have blips, dude.'

Ash went over to Jakey, leaving me on my lonesome again. I went over to the skill master and upgraded my ice beam and an attack passive, from the skill points I had gained from today's adventure.

A little (1) appeared over my inbox.

_Cryaosin._

'Hey, mage girl.

So I'm hoping this isn't too short of notice, but a few of us are doing a dungeon raid on Wednesday and we just need one more to fill the space. It's a 10+ dungeon, though, so if you can at least get up to that before then, that'd be awesome.

Let me know if you're up for it!

- Cry.'

I smiled and clicked on Jakey's character, bringing up a personal chatroom.

'Hey, have we anything going on on Wednesday?' I typed.

I saw his character halt once I'd sent the message. About a minute later, he answered.

'Nothing important. Maybe some map playthroughs if we're bored. Why?'

'Going on a dungeon raid. See you!'

I clicked off the chatroom and pulled up the PM before I could read his 'Um...okay' or 'haha...alright' and began to type in the box.

'Hey! I would love-'

The door to my room burst open, dragging me kicking and screaming out of my fantasy world.

"Have you been up all night again?" mum asked, her words laced with stinging nettles.

Light had just began to flood the curtains, but it was not nearly bright enough to light the room, or make me feel like it was morning. She stood by the door, hands grasping her hips.

"No," I said, shaking my head a little too enthusiastically. "I just got up a little while ago. Couldn't get back to sleep. Went on the computer for a bit."

"I don't believe that for a moment," she said, flicking her brown curls away from her forehead. "That laptop really needs to come off you."

"No!" I cried, embarrassed to find that I'd thrown my arms around the thing. The screen had already faded to black.

"Go to bed," she said. "Get at least an hour or two. You have to be up for 9, remember."

I groaned. When you're sleep deprived, no matter how much you like someone, sleep will _always _come first- once you've motivated yourself to want it. It wasn't hard with my crusty eyelids threatening to stay shut every time I blinked.

She stepped out the room and carefully pulled the door closed. I turned around and stared at the blank screen. Sighing, I shut it down and turned the charger off.

I collapsed on the bed, ready to pass out, but my heavy eyes had deceived me. I stayed awake for god knows how long, mind buzzing with glowing blue swords and pillaging giant gangs. Eventually, I must have drifted off.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time that mum walked in again, hollering about waking up, my body had become a tonne weight, barely more than a corpse.

"Mum," I whined, "I'm not _feeling_ well." I pointed a finger vaguely in the direction of the door.

Even in this disorientated state, I knew the words coming out of my mouth weren't true. It was just my sleep-deprived mind, clawing at any chance to nod off again. As my dreams faded, I forced myself upright. _Not today, brain_.

With enough willpower to shift the tectonic plates, I dragged myself out of bed, falling flat on the floor. For a moment, I let my chin rest on the hardwood. Soon, my discomfort with feeling my body lift up every time I breathed out gave me the much-needed motivation to stand up.

My bedhead reflected in the mirror on my wall, with bits of red and brown sticking up in any old place. Also, I didn't remember my freckles being so prominent before, and the bags under my eyes were hellish. I pouted to myself and shrugged, turning my attention to my drawers.

I pulled out an Adventure Time t-shirt and jeans. I had never really paid much attention to what I wore. In fact, the only thing I really took care in choosing was my bra and pants, because anybody can chop and change their outfits, but _underwear_? The few items of clothing that you don't _have_ to care about?(Unless you were going to have sex, which I wasn't- ever) That was a true reflection of the soul, and I, like many people, didn't want people to know how unkempt my soul actually was.

So I picked out a black lace bra and matching pants. Simple, yet refined. It said, 'my soul is dark and edgy' without adding in 'I also_ really _want you to have sex with me'. (This I did want to say quite often- but not today. ..._Well_, never say never.)

Fully dressed, I stared into the mirror as I yanked a brush through that bedhead. Poor brush.

Brushing alone would never be enough, but at least hair was falling in the right places now. A slight fringe on the left side, cutting into the corner of my eye nearest the temple. The red and the brown were meshing nicely, with red often taking a respectful backseat and shining through.

My eyes drifted to my laptop, which sat on a white desk at the back wall directly across from where I was standing. My gaze lingered there for a while. I walked over and shut the laptop lid, bringing it into my arms the way that you would hold a box, or a newborn baby. I carried it downstairs with me.

The carpet was deep red, and reached down the stairs and into the living room. Most walls in this house were white, apart from the ones in my room. Those changed almost every month; right now, they were purple.

Mum was sitting on the black leather sofa watching _NCIS: Wherever _where I walked in.

She turned around, and stared at the laptop as if she expected it to mutate and lay eggs. "What are you doing with that?" she asked.

I gave her a half smile and one of those breathy, brief laughs, and turned towards the kitchen. "It's a sleepover, mum," I called through. "It's just what you do."

The kitchen led out into the garden. My laptop case hang by the handle of the back door and the satchel that I'd packed the night before lay lazily in the corner between the door and the counters.

"I just think it's a bit pointless," she said, as The Black Cop on NCIS arrested someone for eight murders. "You're going to a friend's house. Talk to each other! You can go on that anytime, but you won't have them forever."

"Yup," I said, peeling the bit that went over the case from the long Velcro catch and tucking my laptop inside it. I picked up the satchel and ducked under the strap, letting the bag fall to my waist and the strap around my shoulder. Putting my fingers through the handle on the case, I carefully made my way through to the living room, stopping on front of the sofa. "But technically, we won't have internet connection forever, either," I said before heading out of the living room and towards the front door.

I pushed down on the handle, but it wouldn't give. "Mum! It's locked!" I called.

"Christ, are you going already?" she asked rhetorically. Metal jangled in the living room.

She came through and turned the key in the door. Before I left, she looked at me with uncertain eyes and said, "At least _try_ to be social tonight."

"I am _very_ social," I said with a thin smile, patting my laptop case.

I ignored her irritated sighs as I stepped out into the front garden.

The white, chipped door swung open with a lively creak. Kat's fresh face peeked around it, a smile already painted on her face. "Ruby!" she chirped. "Come in!"

Suffice to say, in real life, I couldn't summon fireballs to crush my enemies. I was just plain old Ruby Catchford, and I wasn't quite sure how I felt about that yet.

Kat lived on the upper floor of a two story flat, so her front door led into the tiny downstairs hallway and up the stairs. I kept my shoes on since the floorboards had yet to be carpeted and there were nails sticking out here and there.

Kat. What I wouldn't give to have been born a Kat.

They had started the carpeting job in Kat's room, giving her a smooth, medium blue carpet. She opened her door, and three greeting hit me at once as I shoved my laptop case and bag (carefully) under her bed.

Holly, Abby and Summer sat in a triangle in the middle of the room.

Holly wore a denim skirt, black leggings and a tank top, her hair coming down in annoyingly perfect fair curls. Her cheeks were still chubby at 17, but her height (hopefully) made up for her girlish features.

I walked over to them. Abby and Sarah parted to make way for me. Abby's curves poked me in the side as I sat.

"Look at you," Abby said, ruffling my hair with a slightly calloused hand. "You're dressed this time."

(For the record, this was the reference to a sleepover we had a few years ago when I hadn't actually been to a sleepover before, so I just assumed everybody showed up in their pajamas and had pillow fights and tickled each other quasi-sexually. I was 14 at the time, and it had become completely irrelevant now that I had more or less got the sleepover thing down, but for some reason, someone brought it up every damn time.)

Her deep brown eyes looked down at me with a slight smile. I smiled back, and nodded slightly. I don't know what I was nodding at, but I was sure I could figure it out if I thought about it.

Holly reached back and pulled out a beer bottle from under Kat's bed. She took off the undone lid and brought the bottle to her lips, tipping it as she did. It was half empty; she finished it and set it down casually in the middle of the triangle.

"What, are we playing spin the bottle now?" Abby asked with a smirk, looking at Holly.

"You wish!" Kat said, finally coming over to us. She hit Abby playfully with the pillow she was holding. "Pervert."

Abby laughed as Kat threw the pillow onto the bottom bunk of her bunk bed and came down to join us again. "So, we were just saying," Holly said, "Reagan and Micheal are probably going to be meeting us at Jenny's tomorrow."

"Oh, awesome," I said with a slight grin. "Let's just hope it doesn't end up like last time."

"Oh, come on!" Holly said with a chuckle in her tone, leaning forward. "It was hilarious! You were going on about fucking chair monster coming to get 'cha."

I rested my lips on my knuckle and looked up at her from the tops of my eyes. "It wasn't that fun for me," I said quietly.

"Cheer up," Abby said, nudging my side. "It was funny. Everyone there loved you. And you didn't throw up, which is some black magic shit, considering how much you had."

"I might of overdone it," I said lightly, rubbing my left temple with my other hand.

"That's a bit of an understatement," Holly laughed.

Kat got up from the triangle and slid open the door to her room. There were a few moments of silence after she left, and then Abby broke it by looking at me straight in the eye and saying, "We're watching Saw."

After the movie had finished, everyone was too comfortable and too scared to move, so we spent the rest of the day videos on the internet.

Movies like Saw never really scared me; it wasn't happening to me, and it wasn't like it was happening to a real person with a real family either. It also didn't help that I'd seen it when it came out when I was fourteen, on my first real date with a boy. Suffice to say, it ended with him feeling embarrassed and me being frustrated because I'd come up with so many different ponderings on mankind's fascination with horror in those one and a half hours, and he didn't seem up for critical discussion.

A few hours after the light outside Kat's window had faded, (and at this time of year, that didn't happen until well past 10pm), the laptop screen faded to black from disuse and our conversations began to fall upon boys, and romance, and the old days when we were so young and thought we were so smart, and how we fucked up everything that we thought we wouldn't.

Eventually, Summer stretched, her head driving a wedge between Abby and Holly whose knees she had been resting on. Muttering vaguely that she ought to get changed, she wiggled her way out of the bed and went through to the bathroom. One by one, we all shrugged and decided to follow her.

Kat's bathroom was more than big enough to host five people. She had one of those long, curving baths that took up a whole wall and the peephole was so small that nobody could even, like, peep through it. I peeled off my jeans and t-shirt.

"Whoa- where did you think you were headed tonight?" Abby poked with a huge grin. Her gaze remained firmly on my face. She was just jealous that my soul matched better than hers.

"Calm down, dude," Kat said to Abby, her voice muffled by the t-shirt coming over her face.

I couldn't sleep with a bra and pants on, so I stepped behind the bath curtain to get changed into my pyjamas.

"God, I don't know what's up with me," Kat said, "I'm just so fucking tired today, and it's only, what? 3am?"

"You think you're tired," I said, "I got like two hours of sleep last night."

I stepped out in a grey-white striped pyjama top and a pink skirt. (Pyjama skirt?) For once, I had decided that it would be far too hot to wear trousers to bed.

We went back through to Kat's bedroom. Kat stood on front of the bunk beds. "Okay," she said. "Tiny person with a big person- Summer, you're with me and Holly on top, Ruby, you're with Abby on bottom."

"Roger, captain," Abby said, smirking with her hand around the second metallic rung of the ladder. She turned to me, her smile growing warm. "Do you want to go in first?"

I shook my head.

She laughed. "Why?" she asked. "If you sit on the outside, Jigsaw might get 'ya."

I did a breathy laugh, my eyes trailing absent-mindedly to her stomach. "I guess I'll run that risk."

"Alright," she said, hoping into the bed and lying nearest the wall.

I was tired, but it wasn't the kind of 'stayed up all night' tired. I just felt depleted, zapped of energy. I flopped onto the bed. Abby pretended not to notice, but I saw the corner of her mouth turn up, even with her eyes closed.

I closed my eyes, ready to fall asleep before my mind could stop me.

...And the bed was like a stone under my back.

The pillows were thin and insufficient, and the bed was creaky and hard. I didn't sink in like I would have at home; I just lay there. Abby's breaths became louder as she slept, jolting me awake just when I had covinced myself that I was drifting off. I sighed and wiped my hand across my face. I pulled myself off the bed and went over to my laptop case, carefully pulling my laptop out.

I hadn't spent much time in Kat's new house, but I did know two things.

1) She had a closet in the kitchen, far away from where anybody slept, that was just big enough for a person to sit in comfortably and no more.

2) Her mum left the internet on all night.

I went into my bag, took out my headphones and went through to the kitchen. I kept my gaze firmly on the ground, searching for any nails that were sticking out.

The closet was comfier than I thought it'd be; the floors were brown carpet, and there were actually a few pillows stacked on the shelves that surrounded me. I lifted the lid of my laptop and pressed the power button.

I clicked Skype when I came on, and immediately old messages poured in, many wondering where I'd disappeared to during their conversations. (Hint: I'd passed out)

A few moments later, a new message came in.

EllieAshford: hey!

I smiled and began typing.

EmeraldChaos: Hiya

Right off the bat, a video chat request came in. I accepted.

Ash's pale, young face popped up on my screen. Her big brown eyes were surrounded by spider eyelashes. She flipped her dyed white hair to the other side and smiled with thin lips. In real life, Ash was called Ellie, and she was shit at CPR in Home Economics at school, never mind being a mystical healer.

"Hey!" she said.

"Hey!" I replied back, realising I probably looked like hell.

"One minute, I'll add everyone," she said.

Add people she did. A little box appeared in the corner of the screen. Even although I couldn't see who it was, the lighting was horrible, so I knew it was Jakey. I clicked just to be sure.

In real life, Jakey was called Jake. He never did explain the username. He was short (apparently) with hair that he described to us as 'being the colour of bird shit'. He was extremely pale and a few freckles dotted his cheek. His jawline was tight and his forehead was an almost-square.

He sat resting his chin on his hand, the only illumination coming from his laptop. "Hey," he said tersely.

Another box appeared alongside Ash at the bottom. Clicking on it made Carmack's face come up on the screen.

Carmack- or Ben- had a low, solid jawline and dark brown hair down to the middle of his neck. It never seemed to look messy no matter how it fell. Without his glasses, his deep blue eyes seemed awfully small. He was half-smiling at the camera. "What's up, guys?" he asked.

I laughed briefly and looked around me. "It's 3AM and I'm in a closet," I said.

"A closet?" Carmack asked. "What happened there?"

I leaned back and gestured with my hand off-screen. "It's a long story," I said dismissively, my eyelids half-closing.

"Emmy, come on Crest Lives?" Ash asked. (Crest Lives was the game we decided to pick up after all deciding at once to quit WoW.)

"Why?" I asked, leaning in towards the camera. "Are we doing anything?"

Ash shook her head. "Nope- it's just nice to have you there in case we get ambushed by like, elf kings or something."

(Elves were unnecessarily ferocious in Crest Lives. Like- you're half the height of me, you're supposed to bow down before my mighty human glory, not KO me three times in a row.)

"I suppose that's reasonable enough," I said with a smile. "It fucks up my laptop if I keep Skype running, too, though, so I gotta go."

"That's what I'm telling you, you need something with more RAM-" I heard Jake protesting as I pressed the hang up button.

Crest Lives.

I started the launcher. Content updates began to download, adding a few seconds until I could press the start button.

The map of Ravenfell spread out before me for a moment, and then it took me to the warrior's square, where you could buy food and drink from the merchant, weapons from Sadith, and do loads of other cool stuff.

(One thing that I hated about this game was how everyone was referred to as 'warriors' by NPCs. Mages were just as cool as warriors.)

Today, the warrior's center was full to bursting. People overlapped and overlapped again. If I was a real person in this situation, I would have been crushed to death by now.

I remembered to bring up the PM box and reply to cryaosin.

His message from last time was still there, about the dungeon raid.

"Sorry," I typed, "I had to go last night, but if there's still a place open, I'd be happy to join. Still need to get my level up, though, but that's no problem."

I closed the window and went to talk to Aadi to get some jewels on my weapons. I added two deep blue ATK gems to my armour, and took a while deciding what I wanted in the last slot of my staff. In the end, I settled for a MPK gem, glowing an alluring lilac colour. When I finished up, there was a (1) over my mail again. I clicked.

Yeah- it's still up if you want it.

Wanna do a map playthrough together just so you can get your level up?

-Cry

Damn, he types fast. Gotta respect that.

"Sure!" I typed. "Can I send you a request right now?"

I went out of PMs and ran in a circle for a little bit. I didn't have much else I could do- I didn't need anything from any of the men and women here, and I couldn't exactly go out until Cry got back to me. After about a minute of dizzying, a little black box appeared in the very corner of my screen, telling me in white text that cryaosin was requesting access to my microphone.

Ravenfell had a voice call feature, but it would only work if, a) they were in the same area as you and you both approved it, or b) they were part of your team. I clicked accept, anyways.

"Hey!" I'd only heard it once, but I'd never mistake Cry's voice. I desperately didn't want to say the word, 'velvet' since, _what the fuck does velvet even sound like_? but I had to concede at this point.

"Hey," I said into the microphone, as quiet as I could whilst still being completely audible. "Are we doing this?"

"Yeah," Cry said. "Get health potions, remember."

I knew it was meant as a practical suggestion, but I couldn't help laughing a little. "Yeah- I don't wanna screw up like last time." I went over to the merchant.

"What even happened? You didn't have a healer?" he asked as the shop window appeared on my screen.

"We did- the giant crushed her," I said, buying 20 health potions for 500 coins.

"Damn," he said. "Well- we have are health potions, food, my sword, and your wicked ass staff. I think we'll be fine."

I laughed. I was laughing a lot. It was weird- slicing up inhuman monsters didn't often lend itself to comedy.

I ran over to the gate, where Gatemaster Lekk stood with a huge staff. "I wanna be like that guy," I said.

"Who, this guy?" He ran into Lekk purposely.

"Yeah- he could probably cut us to shreds with that thing." I bounced off his staff.

"Oh," he said with a chuckle. "I wish I- never mind."

"What?" I asked.

He stayed silent for a moment. "...I was going to say, 'I wish I had a staff' but like..."

"You already have one in a different place?" I asked.

"That's why I didn't say it," he said, his light, bouncy tone betraying the manner of his words.

"Don't fear the innuendo," I laughed, "the innuendo is your friend." I spoke to Lekk.

He said something about mighty adventures, and then a list of maps popped up. "Right, where are we going?"

"Somewhere with fire," he said, drawing out the 'i' in fire. "I'm feeling it."

I chuckled briefly. "Alright."

I chose the closest thing to a fire map that I had unlocked, which was the Rutung Clan's Hideout. (The Rutung Clan were a bunch of vicious elves that revolted violently against their human masters- it was a long story. To be honest, I thought we deserved it, but I also really hated elves.) In any case, there were a lot of things on fire on that map.

"I'm trusting your judgement here," Cry said as our characters slowly faded out of the warrior's center.

When we materlised again, we were at the edge of a wooden pier. Where the pier ended, a little patch of land led into a forest. We moved forward wordlessly, until we reached a fireplace in a small clearing along the path.

"Man, I didn't mean that kind of fire," he said, his tone still light. He moved towards the fire.

Little men wearing different shades of brown jumped from the trees with chainsaws.

"SHIT, IT'S THIS ONE," he shouted, running behind me.

I couldn't hold back my laughter, even with armed elves coming to rip my insides out. "You trusted me- I gave you elves with chainsaws," I said.

"Yeah, I'll remember that!" he said, and for once he actually sounded afflicted. "_Jesus Christ_."

"Well- if their fire disappoints you, I can more than make up for that," I told him, spurting fireballs at the little devils. It set a few of them back, but there were far too many. The chainsaws forced our health down at a steady but consistent pace.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" I said, mustering all I could to prevent myself from shouting.

I jumped over the little men, and Cry followed me to a pile of boxes at the other side of the clearing, resting against the trees.

Elves couldn't climb.

A sea of chainsaws surrounded us, just a half inch from where we stood on top of the boxes.

"If I don't make it out alive," Cry said in a mock dramatic tone, "tell Aadi I think she has a really nice butt!"

I laughed. "Aadi?" I asked. "Isn't she a little- like, shit, what age are you?"

"19," Cry told me quickly and somewhat defensively.

"She has to be in her mid thirties," I said.

"_Eh_," Cry said, and I could imagine him shrugging nonchalantly. "Older women. Girls don't get that with older guys?"

"I mean, like- I'm sure some do but like- SHIT."

"HOW DOES IT TAKE THAT LONG TO CHOP UP A BOX WITH A CHAINSAW?" Cry yelled. Just the sheer volume and conviction put me into a laughing fit that I tried desperately to contain as we fell to our deaths by elves.

Our characters disappeared from the map and the screen faded to black. Aadi's face appeared with a speech bubble next to it.

'Oh, dear- a terrible fate has befallen our heroes!' it read. 'Do not fear- you will be fine within a wink!'

(Aadi was also a healer class, and had this weird obsession with winks. But she never once uttered the word 'warriors', so she was okay in my book.)

"Look, your girlfriend has saved us!" I said.

"See, that's my girl," he said. I heard a thumping noise, as if he'd brought his knuckle down on his desk.

Darkness fell once again, and we were back in the warrior's center.

"Oh, man, that didn't work," Cry said with an exasperated laugh.

"Because we were dicking around on the boxes," I pointed out.

"Because you were dicking around on the boxes," Cry chuckled.

"We were both doing an equal amount of dicking," I insisted.

Cry laughed. "I'll take your word for it, then."

We fell silent. In the absence of excitement, grey clouds formed around the edges of my vision, and drowsiness came over me like a waterfall- literally like a waterfall, inescapable and all powerful, dragging me down and turning the world into a dull grey blur.

Holly found me in the morning, my face slammed into the keyboard.

"Ruby, get the fuck up," she said, her tone deep and horrified. "We thought you'd gone missing."


	3. Chapter 3

"Guess where she was?" Kat half-shouted into her room as she stormed through the door. Her words couldn't come out fast enough to satisfy her fury. I dragged my feet along the cabehind her, cradling my laptop in my arms. "In the kitchen closet. Passed out in her laptop."

Holly, Abby and Summer exchanged dull glances, emotionless at the surface. Abby stood up from where they were sitting on the floor and walked over to me.

"Are you alright?" she asked monotonously.

I nodded slightly. She gave me a faint grin and sat back down. The room fell to silence as the air grew heavy with unease.

"We were worried sick!" Kat's volume had come down a little, but not by much. "I thought you'd been kidnapped, and someone'd robbed us!" She pointed at the empty black laptop case. She groaned, pressing her palms to her temples.

Once she had gone quiet, I shrugged. "I didn't think I'd pass out," I said honestly, looking her straight in the eye.

Kat turned to the side of me with a sigh, rolling her eyes. "Okay, then," she said reluctantly, her tone becoming calmer and smoother. She pushed a strand of light brown hair from her forehead and looked down at the girls sitting on the floor. "Moving on." She smiled with an eyebrow raised and went to join them.

I kneeled down and pulled out the laptop case from under the bed. I had left it unzipped from last night; no wonder they thought it had been taken. I pulled the earphone cord from the audio jack and wrapped them around my two middle fingers as I carefully dropped the laptop into the bag. I zipped it up and shoved it under my bed.

Next, I took out my bag from beside the case, opened it and let the earphones drop off my fingers into it. A white glow shone through from under my clothes and shampoo.

_Shit. My phone._

I pushed everything out of the way and brought it out. On the lock screen, I swiped my finger across and the app pages came up. I pulled down the notifications screen.

Five texts.

Mom: Text me when you get your friends since you never...

Kat: Hey, are you almost here?

Mom: Ruby, are you there?

Ellie: Heeeeeey!

Jake: Hey, that boy who joined our team for that last...

I tapped on Jake's message.

...map was asking for you. Says to tell you that it'd be better if you two had another form of communication for Wednesday. He's a part of the dungeon raid team you told me about, right?

I sighed and pressed the reply box with my index finger.

'Yeah, he is- tell him I'm sorry. In fact...'

I sighed and straightened my back.

'...I won't be on for much of today, so please give him this number.'

I hit the send button before my mind could attack me for it. Turning the screen off, I threw it into the bag.

"Ruby!" Kat called (ha-ha), seeming to have regained her persistent cheer. "Are you coming?"

I nodded and got up hastily. They stood up one by one as I walked over.

"Do you even know how long you've been out?" she asked, tilting her head forward and smiling so that her nose went up. I shook my head. "It's fucking nine at night."

My mouth fell open.

Nine at night. The last time I remembered was 3AM. I assumed that it didn't take too long for Cry and I to be skewered by elves. That meant...I'd slept for seventeen or eighteen hours.

How the _fuck_ couldn't they have thought to check the closet in eighteen hours?

"We're meeting Reagan and that at ten," Kat said. "Mum's giving us a lift."

I nodded and smiled.

She smiled quaintly and nodded in response. "We're going to go get changed, you coming?"

I pursed my lips and shook my head. "I'll get changed in here, if that's alright?"

"That's fine!" she chirped. She went to move past me, but then stopped in her tracks. "You sure you don't want to borrow my makeup? It's a pretty dressy-up night," she said, looking down at me. Today, the look in her eyes had taken on an air of pleading.

I shook my head with a passive smile, refusing to meet her gaze. "I have mascara- that's all I really need." I looked up at her and tried to force sincerity into my expression.

She smiled quaintly, and nodding, this time stepping to the side of me and walking out. I moved to the well to let the other girls pass. Holly closed the door as she went.

I turned around and let out a deep breath. I shuffled out of my pyjama skirt and pulled the top over my head. Bending down, I put my arm through my bag strap and swung it onto the bottom bunk on the inside of my elbow. I reached into the bag and riffled through the chocolate bars, toiletries and pyjamas. I took out a black tank top and jeans, then returned to the bag for underwear. I'd packed five bras and five pairs of pants, just in case. I decided against four out of five of those pairs and finally emerged from the bag with a sea green bra- padded for comfort, not for size- and matching pants. Today, my soul was enigmatic and like...mermaid-y.

I knew I had time after I'd gotten my clothes on. I sat on my bed and pulled out my phone. One text- Jakey had replied.

'If you say so. You know this guy well enough, don't you? You know him from WoW or something?'

My lips parted slightly as I typed.

'...No. But I trust him with a number.' I hit send.

I lay back on the bed and rested the phone on my chest. It wasn't like I could go to sleep, no- I was sure that if I had more sleep today, I wouldn't wake up. My body would recede into sloth mode, not bothering to bring me back into the world because what was the point?

But somewhere along my pillage into sloth-related thinking, the door opened and the girls flooded in. I barely recognized any of them.

Holly's child like cheekbones were lost in a sheet of foundation. She wore a sparkling black miniskirt, a plain halterneck and ripped fishnets.

Kat was in a red dress that reached to her kness and no more. Cups were built into the neckline of the dress, and she wasn't wearing a bra. Her shoes were open-toed sandals, which made sense given the warm weather out. Her eyes were surrounded by black and her cheeks were tinted red.

Even Summer had shown herself off, in a gothic black and grey dress that clung to her flat stomach. Her eyelashes had become like spiders and her lips were blood red.

The only person that was somewhat averagely dressed was Abby, although her eyes were smokey and her pores seemed to have disappeared.

I bit my lower lip, walking over to Kat.

"I think I might need your help after all," I told her quietly.

By the time we made it out the door and into Kat's mum's car, I was a stranger in my own skin.

After Kat had reddened my cheeks, darkened my eyelids and caked my face in so much foundation that my spots had nowhere to run to, it was apparent that I looked like the head of a doll from some sort of burlesque ad had been stitched onto a store mannequin. So, I let Kat talk me into picking out another outfit, one from her wardrobe.

My deep red miniskirt riled up as I sat down on the black leather. Kat's mum was a very slight, mousey woman with straight, medium brown hair. "Ruby, it's nice to see you again! Are you feeling better?"

('Sick' was our code for 'shitfaced'.)

"Yeah," I said, nodding and smiling pleasantly. "It was just- um- a bit of Norovirus."

"Oh," she said, pausing for a moment. "I thought you could only get that in winter?"

"Yeah, me too," I said, "but apparently you can get it at any time of the year!"

"Oh," she said, nodding. "I'll have to remember that."

Kat elbowed me gently in the side without looking at me. I sighed and rested my head against the car window, looking out at the passing streets.

We came to a stop in an overflowing car park, in front of a small building with a glowing sign that spelled 'JENNY'S' in alternating purple and pink letters. I got out of the car, Kat following closely behind. Summer, Holly and Abby came over to us from the other side. Summer held a black handbag to match her dress and Holly wore a red satchel that rested at her thin hip.

The driver's seat window rolled down. "Kat!" she called. Kat walked up to the window and her mother handed her a few bills. "That's 60, alright?"

Kat nodded, smiling. "Yeah- thanks!"

"No problem," she said. "You girls have fun! Call me if you need anything, or if you want to come home, okay?"

"Okay," we said, almost in unison.

The car began to splutter and purr, and then it slowly reversed out of the car park.

I stood beside Summer as we moved towards the entrance. Kat and Holly pushed each other playfully, having quiet conversations that we probably wouldn't have understood anyways.

Jenny's was a bar, nightclub and cafe all blended into one. A DJ's set was prepared on the other side of the wall as you came in, with the bar right along the back wall and a little bit at the side, cut off from the dance floor with a railing and a gate, that had light wooden tables, chairs and plush red sofas. Right now, the customers were mainly taking up the tables and the bar stools. The DJ wasn't booked to go on yet, but there were still signs along the wall of the area warning that there was no entry allowed back there.

"Micheal!" Holly called, taking the lead as she marched forward to the bar.

A young man turned around on his stool to face us, one stray, renegade curl dancing around his forehead. The rest of his hair was just a thick brown fuzz on his head. He got off the stool and came over to us. He was wearing a dark blue dress shirt and black trousers.

"Hey!" he said, leaning in to hug her. Holly went onto the tips of her toes and wrapped her arms around him.

"Is Reagan here?" Kat asked, stepping forward. Her gaze searched the bar.

"Uh, no, actually," Micheal said, trying to catch her gaze, "she just stepped out with someone. She'll be back in a half hour, maybe."

I masked my groan with a cough. "She's coming back soon, though, right?"

My question fell on deaf ears.

Kat smiled with no emotion, leaned into me and said, "Best not catch that norovirus again." She patted me on the upper arm and the others walked past me, including Micheal. I followed them over to a table near the gate.

A red leather wall served as a back to the couch facing away from the bar. It was uncomfortable as hell, but I still let people past me and sat at the end, where I could easily get up any time I wanted to.

"First round's on me," Kat said, handing out menus from the pile in the middle of the table, "get whatever the hell you like." She held up her handful of bills with a sly smirk, which was, as it turned out, far too big to be only $60.

When the waiter came, Kat ordered a bourbon, Holly a Smirnoff ice, Summer a diet coke, Micheal a vodka shot, Abby a martini, and me a Korobela, which was this sweet cocktail that was so choked full of fruit and fruit juice that it didn't even taste like alcohol. It was, also, quite strong.

"So, how have you been?" Holly asked Micheal, stretching against the wall. (The actual wall, not the leather one.)

"Good," Micheal said, nodding. His body was tilted at a slight angle towards Holly. "College has been keeping me kind of busy." He wiped his hand over his face as a lazy smile came over his face.

"College," Kat piped up tersely. "How is that?"

Micheal turned to her, his eyebrows knitting together. "Aren't you guys...?" he almost-asked quietly. Then his expression lightened and his smile grew. "Oh, yeah! Sorry, I'm thinking of someone else. You guys are doing the leap year thing, right?"

"Hell yeah!" Abby laughed. "It's really the 'we are broke as shit' thing."

"I'm working for the money for it," Holly said, almost defensively, raising a palm to her chest.

"Ah, fuck that," Abby said, leaning back on the leather wall. with her eyes half closed. "So what if I'll be an ice cream lady. Y'know, it's the lowest paid workers that do the much work, that actually make a difference."

Kat laughed. "Abby, are you already-"

"Hi, I've got your drinks here," a light male voice said. I took my elbows off the table to make way for the tray and Abby did the same.

"Like you, sir!" Abby said, her eyes popping open and looking up at the waiter.

The waiter had an expression of utter bewilderment. "Um..."

"Thank you for doing this thing!" she said, pointing to the drinks. Both Kat and I were holding back hysterics. "I hope your shitty wage gets your family fed this week!"

"Uh..." The waiter looked around, as if he were waiting for someone to feed him a line.

"You know what?" She pulled a $20 bill from her coat pocket and handed it to him. "It's not much, but it's something. Hello from the bratty rich kids, we really do count on ya."

His open mouth closed and curled slightly as he took the money. "Uh- thank you," he said. "E-Enjoy your drinks. Let me know if you need anything else."

He turned and walked away.

"That was nice of you," Holly said, with bright eyes.

"I thought you said you were broke," Micheal said, his voice a little deeper than before.

"Oh, don't get her started on this," Kat said quietly, taking up her glass.

"_I'm_ broke as shit," she said. "My parents live in a fuckin' million dollar house."

I sipped my cocktail and pretended like it was fizzy juice. I was jealous of Summer; she got to play the 'too young to drink' card. I mean, all of us were 'too young to drink', but not _too young to drink_. Summer looked about twelve, and there was no chance I was getting off with soda after putting this face on.

Micheal seemingly decided to heed Kat's words and let the conversation drop. A few people were loitering around the dance floor, although the DJ still wasn't on. Bubblegum pop music played in the background as we drank. Micheal seemed to be the one doing the most talking, although it was probably because Holly kept asking him questions. I didn't blame her; we hadn't seen him in so long, he was practically a new person.

When my Korobela was finished, I ordered another one. My world was already seeming a big brighter- in the visual sense.

"What, another one?" Micheal asked.

"Don't question her- it's her drink," Holly said, giving him an eye roll which was directed at me.

"Nah-nah, I get it," Abby said, smiling at me. Then she turned to Holly. "Like, there are some drinks that just get you drunk so well."

I grinned widely and nodded.

Holly looked at me. "Well, if you wanna get drunk, then just like- drink hard liquor or something," she said, shrugging.

"That's not, like-" Abby said, waggling a finger to punctuate her words. "-okay- I like gin, right?"

"We all know you like gin," Holly said.

"Right. I love gin," Abby said, raising her palm to Holly, "but like hell I would get drunk on it. Shit's just depressing! You gotta find the right drunk for your mood, y'know?"

The DJ came on at around 11pm and the dancefloor started to fill. By that time the room was spinning ever so slightly and lights were almost blinding. I rested my head on the leather. Maybe I was meant to be a sloth. They had it so easy.

"C'mon, dude!" Abby said, nudging me. "Don't pass out on us just yet."

"Yeah- you're going to sleep yourself into a coma," Kat said, nudging Abby so that we became nudge-dominoes, and I was the end one that was supposed to fall.

Finally, I got up and let everyone out. The downside to being able to get up whenever you liked? You had to get up.

Kat opened the gate. Abby smirked at me and linked her arm with mine. "Today, I will be your lesbian lover if you encounter creepy guys," she said in my ear as she pulled me through the gate.

"But you are my-" I said, and then just stood there with my mouth open. "...lesbian."

Abby did a belly-laugh. "One and only," she said. "I'd count yourself lucky that you have a bonafide lesbian to play your lesbian lover."

"I do," I said with a slight grin, rubbing the side of my face.

Abby steered as we maneuvered through tipsy people to the middle of the dancefloor, where there was at least a little space to move around without bumping into people. She let my arm go and stared at me up and down. I stayed silent. She leaned down and shouted in my ear over the music, "You're not drunk enough. I'm getting you some of that shit you like."

I sighed. It wasn't like I could stop her.

Some guy grinded on her as she made her way through the crowd. She pushed him and he almost fell flat on his face.

Abby had left me alone, but I was fine in my little space. I bobbed up and down to the music, which was about as much 'dancing' as I could do without embarrassing myself.

I felt skin brushing up against the back of my thighs. I turned around reflexively.

A lanky man with a slight mustache stood on front of me, his mouth oozing the scent of alcohol every time he breathed out. His eyes were half closed, as if he were about to pass out. My chest wrenched.

"C'mon," he slurred, reaching his arms around me as his head lolled.

He had soft fingers, in the way that man-eating wolves had soft fur. Something so unknowable and so uncomfortable, like every brush of his hand was digging into my skin. It was painless, but I didn't fucking want him in my skin. My body froze as my mind screamed and it felt like a tight ribbon was wrapped around my throat, not choking me but just pulling. I couldn't speak. If I did, my voice would sound brittle. I wouldn't have that, couldn't have that, not here, not now, not still.

"Get the FUCK off my girl!" I heard Abby shout. She moved in and broke us up, throwing the pervert down with the hand that she wasn't holding my cocktail in. This time, he did fall down, but he was caught by the people around him. She turned to me and looked me in the eye. "Are you okay, baby? He didn't touch you, did he?"

My mouth opened wider, but no sound came out. My throat begin to warm, my eyes welling up.

Not again.

Not still.

"Need-" I made a sound that was quite similar to the noise that would play when you defeated any demonic woman monster on Crest Lives. That kind of immediate, "Gah!" that indicated that something had broken, that something was disappearing. My heartbeat had increased so much that I could feel it over my breaths.

I gave Abby an almost apologetic look, and turned away.

As I walked, the toilet door felt like it was getting closer to me, like I was just drifting indifferently in space. Like I wasn't here at all, like I was just a presence that had things happen to me. I wished.

I would have taken any hurricane that the flying spaghetti man chose to throw at me, not to be the reason for fucking _everything_ that went on in my life.

Even here.

Even now.

I was sitting in a toilet cubicle, letting tears stream down my face, trying to quieten my sobs, because I couldn't fucking deal with it. I couldn't just laugh it off.

Because it kept repeating on my mind in loop, and every time, the feeling multiplied until my throat shriveled up and my eyes began to leak.

And it was all my fucking fault.

My phone began to buzz in my skirt pocket. (Skirts with pockets: because we typically have more useless shit than guys in general anyways.)

I brought it up to my ear and pursed my lips. I imagined that the energy made my heart beat out of chest was rising to my throat, allowing me to talk. I pressed the green phone button.

"Hello I can't-fuck." The last word was low, gravelly and didn't sound quite human as my vocal chords let up.

"Hello? Is that Emerald?"

Cry.

"Yeah-I-" I made a noise that was somewhere between a cough and a sob.

"Shit, are you choking?" he asked.

I swallowed most of the saliva in my mouth. "I just-I'm just-" _Cough-sob. Cough-sob_. "No. F-Fine."

"Are you sure?"

My breathless wheezes seemed to answer for themselves.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"T-Toilet," I wheezed.

"Toilet? In your house?"

"Bar," I barked accidentally. "Sorry-just-"

"Are you in a cubicle?"

I made a positive noise.

"People- people can hear," I said, my voice going lower and decreasing in volume until I was silent.

"Oh, shit," he said quickly. "Well- d-don't talk. Or talk really quietly- if you can- and just like...listen."

"Okay," I said, the first evenly toned word that had come out of my mouth in the last five minutes.

"See? You're okay," he said calmly, his words bouncing. "In a little while you'll be a lot more okay. Vocal chords are fuckin' weird, man. Sometimes they're just like, 'You know what man? I'm out. Fuck you all'." I almost laughed, but laughing- like talking- was not a liberty I had at my disposal right now. "And I don't know what's happened, or what's scared the shit out of you, but like- as long as it's not really small, or like- fuck, they don't have an axe or anything, do they?"

"No," I said with a grin.

"That's good! I'm glad that's a thing. Well, if it's not like, a venomous snake or anything, and it's not an axe murderer, then you're pretty safe in your little cubicle, aren't you?" His voice had become soft and slow like it was when he had said hello.

"I don't- I don't know," I replied. I was sure that my vocal chords had strengthened a little, but I didn't want to push it.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked in monotone- and even his monotones were nice to hear. I still couldn't help but think that he sounded like a motivational speaker for people who want to be professional athletes.

"People," I said, carrying his monotone and cliche.

He stayed silent for a moment. "...Right. Can you, like- get out? Can you leave?"

"No," I said. "Friends are here."

"Oh," he said with a little more energy. "That's fine. Cubicles are good. Cubicles are fine. How are you doing?"

"...Good," I said, "better, I think- sorry."

"That's absolutely fine," he said, as if my embarrassment was something he wanted to quietly shoo into the cupboard.

"I'll have, like..." I said. My throat seemed to tighten a little around the words, but not so much that they couldn't get through. "...like, explanations."

I sighed. Step one: saying words. Step two: Saying words that didn't sound like they came out of a talking chimp. "...I've just had a lot to drink. I'm pretty fucked up right now."

"Hey, me too!" Cry said happily. "Not the fucked up part- I don't think- but, hey. Alcohol, right?"

I laughed for a half breath and let my eyes fluttered closed. "Not really," I said. "It tastes like shit and fucks up my vocal chords."

Cry was quiet. "...Eh, there's that," he said.

There was a knock at my cubicle door.

A jolt went through my body that caused me to arch my back and audibly gasp.

"Emerald, are you alright?"

"Ruby, I know you didn't come in here because you need to shit," a voice called empathetically from the other side of the cubicle door.

"I gotta go," I whispered. "Call me Emmy." I hung up and pulled back the catch on the door.

Reagan stood there, with her circular face tight and her deep brown eyes staring at me intensely. She was barely the height of me, so she could never look threatening. I threw my arms around her, and I could feel her jaw loosening slightly. She put her hands on my back.

"Come on. I'm taking you home."


End file.
